Great Leadership

Mentoring is the highest form of teaching.

The student watches while the expert does it.

The student assists the expert, receiving advice.

Eventually the roles shift and the expert will only be assisting the student.

Finally the student is off and doing it on their own while the mentor watches.

It really seems like the perfect plan.

But what do we do about the parts of us that we don’t want reproduced in the lives of those who follow us? None of us is perfect, and if my leadership is characterized by reproducing myself, then there is a critical error in my plan. I know the inner struggles I deal with every day, and I would hate to think that amidst the good I pass on to those I mentor, the bad is learned as well. Even the world’s greatest leaders had their flaws. Orson Welles had a creative mind like none other, but a lack of trust in others. Brett Favre continually leads his teams to the brink of greatness with his QB skills, but tends to fall short because of his risk taking. President John F. Kennedy led the US in one of it’s most definitive periods in history making a mark on Communism, The Space Rush and the military. Yet so much of his good was rivaled with bad. How could the followers of these great leaders prevent themselves from making the same mistakes?

Thus the challenge of mentoring:

It’s learning when to be hands on and when to be hands off.

When should I step in an offer correction, and when should I allow for adaptations to my way of doing it? Each of us is unique and will put our own spin on things. In fact beauty of humanity is that none of us is the same.

My greatest hope is that I will be nothing more than an ever-present resource to those whom I lead. I will always be there to walk beside them as they grow. I will lead in areas that are foreign, partner with them as they take steps of success and failure on their own, and be their greatest cheer leader as they run off on their own.

Great leadership requires having your hands off a majority of the time, and trusting that relationship will be the force that allows me to pass on the good I have to offer, while preventing passing on my struggles.